Stormhammer: The Legendary Butcher – Part 2 (The Butcher Rises)

Hello again, my fine electrified fiends! It’s been a hectic week with the release of my first novel, Gearteeth, a steampunk-horror tale of post-apocalyptic werewolves in the Old West (yes, blatant plug 😛 ). But enough excuses, Conversion-Thrall: onward, and get the work done!

Last time we converted the limited-edition terrain piece that came with Butcher3, forever scarring a piece of history with the terrible talents of Tim (that’s me). Today we face the penultimate killer, and one of the best and most meta-bending casters in Khador: Butcher3 himself!

Let’s get started! As you can see above, I’ve laid out many of the parts I’ll be using, as well as bits that may or may not get used. My process is very organic in that I jam pieces into spots and see how they look. While I can do a lot of it in my head as mental constructs, nothing quite compares to precariously balancing something that’s not supposed to go in a spot to see how it’ll look if I violate the model. Astute readers will notice that the legs and extra heads of the argus hounds are missing. Next week you’ll find out why 🙂 First though, let’s get to cutting on the Butcher!

“Not cool, Brosevich!”

Poor, poor Butcher. Here you see I’ve cut off his Khador symbols from the belt and chest icon, as well as slicing off his attached shoulder entirely. I’m not a fan of his shoulders, at least for conversion purposes. In his previous two incarnations it just felt like I was slapping something on them without any real creativity. I figured that the last of the Stormhammer, the caster that makes others quake, deserved more. You’ll also notice half his face is gone. No, he’s not buying into the Hollywood ideal of beauty, but one of the directives I’m working under from the Stormhammer winner was to make his face like a Terminator’s. I obey 🙂

“Don’t shave me, brosevich!”

Here we see the back of Butcher’s cape and his new power source. In the other two versions I tried to somewhat keep the original boiler, but in this version I decided to go hog-wild and completely replace it. A lot of dry-fitting led to me cutting most of the fur and top of the cape off to comfortably seat the new power core, a cut-down version of the old Centurion electro-shield that’s been sitting in my bits bin for a few years. I’d forgotten completely what I originally sliced it up for, but it fit nicely on Butcher’s back, so there it goes!

“Grey on grey. That’s easy to see, right?”

In comparison to his body and back, Lola received very little modification. Originally I contemplated a double bladed axe head, but didn’t have the parts. Then I thought of the Extreme Juggernaut’s axe, but it’s size looked goofier than the goofiest super-weapon anime ever. So instead I went low-key here, slicing off the head of a Defender’s hammer and gluing it on the back of Lola. I didn’t notice until I was writing the article that the grey of the material almost perfectly matches the grey of the drill I was using to prop it up. I’m just that good! Power cabling will eventually run from it into the power core.

“Cover your shame!”

The first major attachment! Here you see how the power core fits on the cape, and how it all fits on the back (it’s actually quite a heavy piece!).

“At least my pants won’t fall down.”

The front side of Butcher now. You’ll notice that he has a new belt buckle and sigil shield, both made from the front horsey armor from the Storm Lances (a Cygnaran piece of horse armor serves as the Butcher’s belt buckle … there’s a joke in there somewhere). Before attaching the cape, I also pinned and glued the secondary bits to his coat.

Here we see the Butcher’s replacement shoulderpads: Man O’ War shoulders! I’ve always wanted to go a bit overboard and stick epic Stryker’s backpack on a couple, but it looked goofy on most minis. But Butcher? Yeah. He can pull this epic shoulders off, and laugh at Vlad’s tears of inadequacy.

Time to put it all together …

Bam! You been Butchered! The final build stages were very much gap-filling, putting things together, and a few choice cuss words. The original plan I’d had for the head was to take an Instant Mold of a Convergence warrior’s head to use as the Terminator half-face, which was all well and good until a single drop of super-glue got on it during attachment and ruined the fine details. Convinced I needed something sturdier, I tried to cut up a Thrall’s head, but it was too small for my clippers to cut well. Finally, I slapped myself up side the head and realized I could just use half of epic Gaspy’s head, much as I had with the Queensguard conversions. After that it was simply a matter of construct a little, greenstuff gaps, wait for dry times, repeat. The final touch was to use my Tentacle Maker to craft power hoses for the weapons and armor. Then the real final step was resculpting the back of the fur collar after I realized I’d forgotten to do that /facepalm

Here he is mounted atop the terrain piece:

“BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!”

Not bad, I think. Commanding, imposing, and he actually fits despite my mods!

Next week we face the final conversion challenge: crafting the Dogs of War!